VIENNA, Austria — The United States and its allies should not pursue "hidden agendas" in their widening war on terror because the campaign is not the world's main concern, the head of the Arab League said Friday.
Rather, the Arab world's major worry is "the Israeli military occupation of Arab territories and the infringement of the rights of Palestinians," Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa said.
Moussa warned Washington and its allies against using their worldwide hunt for terrorists for "settling accounts and imposing a different world order" — an apparent reference to Arab fears of a planned U.S. attack on Iraq.
Even though Middle East countries also consider terrorism "evil," joining the Western campaign against it was not the region's top priority, Moussa said.
Moussa spoke at an international conference planning anti-terror strategies that was convened by the Austrian Defense Ministry. His comments appeared to indirectly criticize Western participants, who depicted the need for worldwide mobilization of resources against terrorism as the main concern of the international community.
He also argued that terrorism is not linked to any one region, race or religion.
"We see an attempt to link Islam to terrorism," Moussa said. He also criticized unspecified nations and governments for allegedly "accusing all Arab or Muslims of terrorist intentions and cultures."
In separate comments, NATO Secretary General Lord Robertson said the alliance — traditionally focused on conventional warfare — now is paying increased attention to the threats from nuclear, biological and chemical weapons.
Robertson said a planned NATO summit in Prague, Czech Republic, in November will endorse concrete measures to "sharpen the alliance's terrorist-fighting potential," including approving a "military concept for defense against terrorism."
"Terrorism is no longer a domestic problem," Robertson declared in urging a worldwide alliance against a "threat to international security."
NATO, created in 1949 to counter the threat of a large-scale Soviet-led attack, shifted its focus after the Cold War ended in the 1990s, putting more emphasis on political pressure to prevent conflicts and on the ability to respond to small-scale conflicts like that in Kosovo in 1999.
Since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the 19-member alliance has moved quickly to join the war on terror, Robertson said, including sending early warning aircraft to patrol American skies after the strikes and cracking down on "terrorist cells" in the Balkans.
"For the longer term, we are focusing more systematically on the protection of our forces and populations against nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, on the dangers of proliferation, and on ballistic missile defense," he said.
NATO will act against "terrorists and those who harbor them," said Robertson, referring to resolutions adopted last week at a meeting of alliance defense ministers in Brussels, Belgium. "We agreed that NATO should be ready to deploy its forces 'as and where required' to carry out such missions."
Robertson also praised the newly created NATO-Russia Council, saying the "fight against terrorism is the key component" in relations between the former enemies.
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